Assessing staff seek contracted measure-and-list services and temporary help

The town’s assessing department asked the Hooksett Budget Committee on Nov. 3 to keep professional‑services funding available for measure‑and‑list fieldwork and to use temporary or contract help rather than hiring a new part‑time assessor.

The presentation explained that measure‑and‑list vendors go into the field to confirm permits and changes to properties and then feed those data into the town’s Vision assessor software. The assessor had proposed adding a part‑time employee; committee staff proposed using temporary/contract help funded from the professional‑services budget instead to avoid adding a salary and benefits line.

"Instead of doing the part time employee portion that we would hire that temp help, and we would pay it out of that money that's allocated under the professional service line," a staff member said, describing the preferred approach. Committee members noted the measure‑and‑list work can be costly and indicated the contract option would be used as needed to support busy processing periods, such as tax billing and revaluation cycles.

Budget context: the assessing department’s professional‑services line was discussed at length; staff said historically the town has not fully spent that line but that changes in development and permit activity can require more work. Vision software is used to ingest field data from vendors; the committee asked staff to track vendor costs and bid competitiveness when possible.

What’s next: staff plan to fund temporary measure‑and‑list needs from professional‑services and to advertise for an assessor while retaining the option to use an outside firm for heavy workloads.